Benefits for All Students
With the public’s commitment to school integration strategies low, it is important to cite specific evidence of how diverse schools benefit all students and society.
“Integration works, but only if we give it a chance—that is, if we implement collaborative policies beginning in the early childhood years and sustain quality investments from prekindergarten through high school graduation and beyond.”
— Rucker Johnson, Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works (2019)
Summary of Research on Benefits of Diverse Schooling
| ACADEMIC | SOCIAL | ECONOMIC | |
|---|---|---|---|
| All students | Improved language learning for all students in early childhood Improved critical thinking and problem solving skills for all students Higher test scores for all students Lessens all students' implicit bias, which interferes with cognitive processes | Improved intergroup and interpersonal communication for all students Better intergroup relations: less prejudice and stereotypes, more friendships Greater understanding of diverse perspectives for all students Greater diversity of future relationships and environment for all students All students are more collaborative and ready for leadership | All students are more prepared to work in the global economy All students better prepared to serve heterogeneous populations All students are more skilled in working with customers/clients All students more creative: product development, community outreach, marketing |
| Students of color | Lower dropout rates for students of color Smaller achievement gaps between white students and students of color Greater likelihood of students of color attending college | Reduced risk of incarceration for students of color Better health outcomes for students of color | Much lower incidence of students of color falling into poverty Reduced costs of health care and criminal justice for students of color Students of color are more likely to work in a STEM field Greater occupational attainment and higher earnings for students of color |
| White students | White students' thinking is more complex as they are more open to other ideas | White students have greater concern for the public good, higher civic engagement |
Academic Benefits
As famously stated by Chief Justice Warren in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), school segregation is “inherently unequal” because students from minority groups or underserved communities in segregated schools are made to feel inferior and given lower expectations, which impacts academic performance through the phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Supreme Court has been presented with overwhelming evidence of the academic benefits of diverse colleges by social scientists from the fields of education, psychology, sociology, and economics. Justice Powell emphasized in the landmark Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) affirmative action decision: “People do not learn very much when they are surrounded only by the likes of themselves.”
More recent scholarship has focused more on the structural mechanisms involved in school desegregation, integration, and resegregation.
School integration improves outcomes for all students by raising the average student socioeconomic status (SES) of the school and balancing out the distribution of resources for students who have been underserved or have greater needs. For example, schools with a higher average SES have more overall parental involvement as seen with PTA volunteerism and fundraising efforts.
School integration efforts in general resulted in higher levels of funding, lower teacher-student ratios, and more highly qualified teachers for all students—plus fewer school disruptions, greater social and cultural capital, and more challenging courses for Black students.
In Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works (2019), economist Rucker Johnson describes how Great Society-War on Poverty programs initiated along with the major Civil Rights legislation in the late 1960s helped improve educational outcomes along with integration by giving students more resources at home. He cites evidence that the presence of a high-quality PreK program like Head Start in a school system doubles the return on investment of additional funding put into K-12 in terms of academic outcomes like graduation rate and other social/health outcomes. However, if a child has Head Start but then goes through K-12 in underfunded schools, those skills will drop off.
These reasons help explain why more progress was made in closing the achievement gap during the peak years of desegregation than it has in the entire time since desegregation has been replaced by accountability policies.
Social Benefits
The consensus from many social scientists and educational associations is that school integration helps students learn skills that can mitigate implicit biases that everyone holds—thus, integrated schools have less extreme “in-group” and “out-group” divisions and conflicts in general.
While bias is implicit and automatic, it is not immutable. Dr. Gordon Allport‘s revolutionary, though intuitive, finding was that bias can be overcome, and prejudice reduced, when meaningful interracial contact occurs. People are capable of being de-biased by contact with minorities on equal terms.
— The White Interest in School Integration (Garda, 2011)
Improved intergroup relations and decreased conflict at integrated schools also contribute to the reduced risk of incarceration for Black students.
A study of secondary schools by Jeremy Adam Smith (2017) found that students in more racially balanced classrooms throughout the school day reported more positive feelings and experiences about safety, bullying, loneliness, and teacher fairness, such that they sought out rather than avoided cross-race interactions compared to students in less diverse classrooms.
According to Johnson (2019), being in integrated schools throughout your school-aged years is so positive for health outcomes, it is like adding 7 years to your life. One reason is that greater emphasis on equity in early childhood education has led to better detection of risk factors like missing vaccinations and issues with eyesight, hearing, and teeth. There are exceptions where Black students have been harmed by improperly integrated schools, but that is not the norm.
Economic Benefits
Students who experience integrated schooling are more likely to get higher degrees and work in diverse environments after they graduate. Studies of companies and employers have found that educational integration is correlated with greater creativity, collaboration, and leadership readiness in the workplace.
These benefits are also true for white students. There is broad support for school integration in the business world—including Fortune 500 companies—because it is important for developing cross-cultural communication skills and confidence in the global workplace.
Such cross-cultural competence affects a company‘s performance in virtually all of its major tasks: (a) identifying and satisfying the needs of diverse customers; (b) recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce, and inspiring that workforce to work together to develop and implement innovative ideas, and (c) forming and fostering productive working relationships with business partners and subsidiaries around the globe.
Amicus Brief submitted by General Motors in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) affirmative action case
Integrated schooling helps students and future workers be better prepared to serve heterogeneous populations, in health care or legal services for example, and respond to the increasing purchasing power of minority groups.
Resources
Rucker Johnson Children of the Dream webinar on Urban Reads by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, 2020
The importance of integrated schools and classrooms / Social Science Findings Fact Sheet, Chapter 3 and pp. 93-94 of a \NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the UCLA Civil Rights Project report, 2008
How Racially Diverse Schools and Classrooms Can Benefit All Students by The Century Foundation, 2016
Impact of Privatizing Public Schools: View from the Research PSFNC webinar with Richard Kahlenberg (Century Foundation), Erika Wilson (UNC Law School), and Kris Nordstrom (NC Justice Center/NC Policy Watch).
The webinar is also embedded below. See video Chapters in YouTube for sections specific to benefits of diversity and integration.
References
Ayscue, J., Frankenberg, E., & Siegel-Hawley, G. (2017). The complementary benefits of racial and socioeconomic diversity in schools. Diversity Research Briefs, 10. The National Coalition on School Diversity. https://www.school-diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo10.pdf
Garda, R. (2011). The white interest in school integration. Florida Law Review, 63, 600–655. https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol63/iss3/3/
Gottschalk, T. A., Jaworski, F. S., Geller, K. S., & Penner, E. (2003). Grutter v. Bollinger, et al.: Brief of General Motors Corporation as Amicus Curiae in Support of Respondents. Supreme Court Insight. ProQuest. http://blackfreedom.proquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/grutter79.pdf
Hopper, E. (2019). What Is the Contact Hypothesis in Psychology? ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/contact-hypothesis-4772161
Johnson, R. C. (2019a). Children of the Dream: Why school integration works [Video]. Education Policy Initiative: Book Talks @ The Ford School. https://fordschool.umich.edu/events/2019/children-dream-why-school-integration-works
Johnson, R. C. (2019b). Introduction: The Dream Deferred. In Children of the Dream: Why school integration works. In Google Books (Preview). Basic Books. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Children_of_the_Dream/NIRoDwAAQBAJ
Long, C. (2020). A hidden history of integration and the shortage of teachers of color. NEA.org. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/hidden-history-integration-and-shortage-teachers-color
McArdle, N., & Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2017). Consequences of segregation for children’s opportunity and wellbeing. Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. A Shared Future: Fostering communities of inclusion in an era of inequality. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/a_shared_future_consequences_of_segregation_for_children.pdf
Mickelson, R. (2016). School integration and K-12 outcomes: An updated quick synthesis of the Social Science evidence. Diversity Research Briefs, 5. The National Coalition on School Diversity. https://www.school-diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo5Oct2016Big.pdf
NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, & Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles. (2008). The importance of integrated schools and classrooms / Social Science Findings Fact Sheet. In Still Looking to the Future: Voluntary K-12 School Integration (pp. 16–22, 93-94). https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/still-looking-to-the-future-voluntary-k-12-school-integration/naacp-still-looking-future-2008.pdf
Oyez. (n.d.). “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1).” https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483
Roy, E., Ford, J. E., & Center for Racial Equity in Education. (2019). Deep Rooted: A brief history of race and education in North Carolina. CREED via EdNC. https://www.ednc.org/deep-rooted-a-brief-history-of-race-and-education-in-north-carolina/
Smith, J. A. (2017). How students benefit from school diversity. Greater Good Magazine; The University of California at Berkeley. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_students_benefit_from_school_diversity
Stuart Wells, A., Fox, L., & Cordova-Cobo, D. (2016). How racially diverse schools and classrooms can benefit all students. The Century Foundation. https://tcf.org/content/report/how-racially-diverse-schools-and-classrooms-can-benefit-all-students/?agreed=1&session=1
by Nancy Snipes Mosley,
PSFNC staff member and former high school Social Studies teacher
Last updated 8/6/2024